411: Our Generous God

Thanks for tuning in, it's an honor to be with you.

As we study God's Word together, may our time uplift and encourage you.

If you could use some hope, I pray you find it here today.

I know Christmas was months ago, but I hope you'll indulge my

Dickensian illustration in today's episode.

The tale of Ebenezer Scrooge paints just the right picture

and helps remind us that abundant grace of God has the power to unscrew the most stubborn hearts.

Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone Scrooge,

a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching covetous old center, hard and sharpest flint

from which no steel had ever struck out a generous fire, secret and self-contained,

solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features,

nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gate, made his eyes red,

then lifts blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.

Isn't this a great paragraph? A frosty rhyme was on his head and on his eyebrows

in his wiry chin. He carried his own low-temperature always about with him.

He iced his office in the dog days and didn't thought one degree at Christmas.

Way to go, Charles Dickens. I can just see Ebenezer Scrooge. Can't you?

Shuffling down the icy streets of London that old persnickety, hard-hearted,

tight-fisted picture of stenchiness, snapping at anything that moved, including

cratchet and Christmas. Can't you just see old Ebenezer Scrooge? Sometimes you can when you

look in the mirror. There's a shadow of Scrooge in the best of us.

We don't want there to be, but there is. We start to make a donation to a worthy cause

and then the voice of Scrooge whispers, now don't overdo it.

We start to give time to a needy family and Scrooge says, now you only have so much time.

We start to forgive an old enemy. An old Scrooge says, now you don't want to

go too far on this mercy thing. Old Scrooge. Scrooge is Stingy, not just with a checkbook,

but with kindness, with compliments. Stingy with his encouragement. Stingy with second chances.

Old Scrooge. Nobody wants to be a hard-hearted Scrooge.

I doubt if any of you are making a list of things to do this week and you've put on your list,

so I'm going to make sure and be Stingy with somebody.

Now one of you at the end of the day have thought back and said, man, I woke up in such a grumpy

mood, but then I got Stingy and I felt so much better. I don't think you've ever had a friend

come up to you and say, you know, I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for your hard heart.

We've learned that really Stinginess does not gain us anything. We would agree with the wise man

who said, the world of the generous gets larger and larger. It's the world of the Stingy

that gets smaller and smaller. You may have heard the story about the Stingy old Koot who decided

that he was going to take his money to heaven with him. He was on his deathbed and he told his wife,

take all my money and put it in two pillowcases, set it up in the attic. When I die as I pass

through the house, through the attic, I'm going to reach out and I'm going to grab those filler

cases and I'm going to take my money to heaven with me. Well, the wife thought he was crazy, but

he was dying. What could she do? So she took all the money, she put it in two pillowcases.

Set it up in the attic. The day after he died, she went up in the attic to see if the money was

there. Sure enough, it still was. And she said to herself, see, I knew I should have put it in the basement.

As she has a good point, I wouldn't think that Stinginess is a heavenly attribute.

It's just the opposite. If you want to fill in the blank, our God is constantly generous.

Maybe you've noticed, even in the creation story, the generosity of God, the Lord filled his garden

with all kinds of trees, trees that were pleasant, pleasing to the eye, and good for food. You know

a few trees would have done it, but he decided to fill the garden with all kinds of trees,

and all kinds of fruit, cantaloupe, strawberries, watermelons, chocolate-covered peanuts,

all kinds of fruits. Aren't those fruits? All kinds of fruits. Why would he create such a variety?

Well, for the same reason, he declared, let the water team with living creatures and the birds fly

above the earth across the vault of the sky. He didn't just put a few fish in the water. He let

the water team with living creatures. Would Adam and Eve see all the creatures that God made? No.

Still, God was generous, and he created them. Same thing could be said about the galaxies.

Is it true that no human being has ever seen all the stars that are in the universe?

Is that true? I've been told that. Did no person has ever seen all the stars? Then why are they there?

Wouldn't five stars have been enough? One for daylight and four for directions. That would have

been plenty. The Scrooge within us would have limited the number of stars, but God has never been

called tight-fisted. He has been called rich in kindness, tolerance, and patience. His grace

has been described as exceedingly abundant and indescribable. He doesn't just love. He lavishes us

with love. He doesn't just dole out wisdom. He gives generously to all without finding fault.

Our God is constantly generous. Generous enough to give Joseph an Egypt immeasurable grain.

Generous enough to give the Hebrew slaves when they entered the Promised Land, a land that was

flowing with milk and honey. Generous enough to fill the hungry soul with goodness.

Generous enough to give us the gift of goodness and mercy that follows us, not just a few of our days,

but all the days of our lives. Generous enough to give rain to the just and the

unjust. Generous enough to be kind to the unthankful and the evil. Generous enough to overflow

the table of the prodigal with the banquet. To overflow the vats of the wedding with wine.

Generous enough to overflow the bellies of the hungry with food, and overflow the boat of

Peter with fish, not just once, but twice. Jesus is generous, generous enough to heal all who came

to him for health, all who came to him for teaching, and forgive everybody who came to him for salvation.

Peter once inquired about future rewards. He said, see, teacher, all the things that we have given up

to follow you, what will reward be for us? And Jesus could have corrected him at that point,

in this what's in it for me attitude, but Jesus didn't correct him. But Jesus said, because you

have left your family in France for me, you will receive 100 fold, 100 times, 100 fold in this life

and in the life to come. I've never been accused of being very good at math, but I'm told that

that is a 10,000 percent return on an investment, 100 fold, 10,000 percent. If I gave you 10,000

dollars for the one dollar you gave me last week, what would you call me besides stupid?

You might call me generous. God was called generous. In fact, he was so generous that people turned

their heads and thought he was overdoing it. The second point is that God is controversially generous.

He's controversially generous. His benevolence has bothered people. It bothered the workers

in the story that Jesus told. Jesus told a story about a landowner who needed some workers. And so

he went to the temp agency of his day and he agreed upon a wage with all the day laborers.

And he hired a few of them to come out to work in his vineyard at 6 a.m.

About nine in the morning, he needed some more. So you know what he did?

He went back and loaded up his pickup truck with workers and took him out to the fields.

Noon, he needed some more. So he did it again. Three in the afternoon, he needed some.

So he did it again. At five in the afternoon, he went back and he saw some more standing around.

And he asked them, why haven't you been working today? And they replied because no one hired us.

Now may I confess my distaste for what they said? The scrooge within me doesn't like that response.

At first of all, the landowner just comes upon them and they're standing around. I don't know if

he's still looking for workers or not, but he finds them just standing around. And he says,

why haven't you found work? And they said, well, we couldn't find anything to do all day. Come on.

Paint someone's house, trim someone's tree, clean someone's fingernails, find something to do.

There's something you can do. You've been standing, you're telling me, you've been standing,

I would have given them a lecture. But you know what the landowner did?

You're not going to believe this. He gave them a job. At five in the afternoon, he hired them.

And he took them to work. At six in the afternoon, just one hour later, it came time to settle up.

And so he paid his workers. Guess what? Everybody received the same amount.

Those who worked one hour received the same as those who worked 12 hours.

Those who worked less than a day received a full day's wage, which in this case was four fifths

of the work crew. Well, guess what? That ticked off the six a.m. workers. Would that bother you?

Well, I think it bugged me too. The six the six a.m. worker said, those people, you can just see

him pointing their scroogey fingers, those people worked only one hour. And yet you've paid them

just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat. I don't know where the scorching

heat part came from, but I can sympathize with them. One hour workers receiving the same

amount of money as the 12 hour workers. That's not good business. In this labor relations 101,

you get compensated for what you do. You get paid for how you work. This is no way to run a business.

But Jesus is this point here. It's not about running a business. And he's not talking about

economy. He's talking about salvation. He's talking about grace. He's talking about forgiveness.

And the landowner says to those who were complaining, is it against the law for me to do what I want

with my money? Should you be angry because I am kind? In other words, I can do whatever I want.

God says when it comes to salvation, I'll say, who I want, when I want, how I want. And it's not

your business. He is so generous that he is known to stir a controversy on the street corner

among the workers. Let others question his lavish love, however, and he won't back off. Let me show

you a passage that's tucked away in the book of Jeremiah. Maybe you've never seen it. God says,

I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will never stop doing good to them.

I will inspire them to fear me so they will never turn away from me. Look at this. I will rejoice

in doing them good. Not only will God do good, he'll have fun doing it. He delights in doing you

good. He delights in doing you good. Tattoo it on your chest and paint it on your wall. Let the

entire world know about this generous God who delights in doing good things for his people. He is

the cheriest of the cheerful givers. In fact, he's been known to give gifts in the millions of

dollars. This is the point of the second story that Jesus told to illustrate the generosity of God.

Apparently, there was a servant who owed more money than he could ever repay. Repaying it was

humanly impossible. The king to whom the man owed the money decided that he was time for him to

settle up his debts. And so the king ordered that he, speaking of the man who owed the money,

his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. But the man fell

down before the king and begged him, oh, sir, be patient with me. I will pay at all. And the king

was filled with pity for him. And he released him. And he forgave the debt.

God's generosity strikes again. Did you note the request of the man who had the million dollar debt?

He said, just give me time. I'll pay it back. But did you notice the gift of the king? Did he

give him time to pay it back? No. He forgave the debt. He forgave the debt.

I would imagine that the minister, the head of the Department of Treasury for the king,

heard about this and ran over to him and said, you can't run a kingdom giving away these million

dollar gifts like this. How can you expect to run a kingdom if you're giving away these gifts?

But that's not the question of this story. It's a good question. But it's not the question of the

story. The question of the story is not how could the king give away gifts? But how could the

unfer- could the just forgiven man not forgive others? You see, in the next paragraph of the story,

the man leaves the castle and he makes a beeline to the house of somebody who owes him just a few

thousand dollars. Now, how much was he forgiven? Over a million dollars. Somebody owes him a few

thousand dollars. And we're expecting him to walk into the house of this man and say, man, I have

just been forgiven a million dollar debt. And the king has been so kind to me. I'm going to be kind to

you. Your slate is clean. Your debt is forgiven. That's what we expect. We expect the picture of

cascading grace. But that's not what we read. In this case, the just forgiven man goes and he

fives the man who owns him just a few thousand dollars and he strangles the man and he demands payment.

And when the man makes the same request, just give me some time. I'll pay it back. The man who had

just been forgiven the debts is no. And he puts the man in debtors prison. And we scratch our heads

and say, now, how could that happen? How could this man who had just been forgiven such a great debt,

not turn around and forgive the debt of somebody else? What's curious is that Jesus doesn't give us

an explanation. He doesn't tell us we're left to speculate. And so my speculations have led me to

this conclusion. Here's what I think. I think the man never received the grace of the king.

I don't think he received the grace of the king. I think had you seen this man when he exited the

castle of the king, he would not have said, oh, what a great king I serve. He would have said,

what a true businessman I am. I just pulled a quick one on the king. I just bamboozled the king.

I just got away with murder. I just skirted the system. I just worked it. I just found a loophole.

I just pulled a fast one over the old man. And instead of having a grateful heart, he had a puffy

chest. And he was arrogant. And listen, arrogance never gives grace. And so he didn't. And he wouldn't

forgive the man who owed him just a few thousand dollars. And when the king found out about his

unwillingness to forgive, the king erupted in anger. It's interesting. The king was willing to

forgive the man his debt, but he was unwilling to forgive the man his in gratitude. So look what

happened to the man. The king called the man he had forgiven and said, you evil servant.

I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have had mercy

on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you? And the king unlocked that, locked that

ungrateful wretch away. And Jesus made this point. That's what my heavenly Father will do to you.

If you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters in your heart.

Boy, Jesus doesn't mince words here, Duffy. And neither should we. Here it is in a sentence.

True grace creates more grace. True grace creates more grace. In case you miss it,

we are the man with the million dollar debt. That's you and me.

We'll more quickly climb to the moon on a rope than we'll ever repay all the goodness that God

has expressed toward us. His grace toward us has been immeasurable, incalculable. We can never

pay back the debt that we owe him. And though we cannot, his grace covers it.

He has not just, listen, he has not just sprinkled grace on your life. He has poured grace onto

your life. He does not distribute and dispense grace with an eyedropper. He does with a fire hydrant.

Your heart is a dixie cup. And God's grace is Niagara Falls.

You cannot contain it all. You cannot. You cannot try as you might. It's going to pour into your

life. And it's going to overflow, bubble out, spill into the lives of others. That's the way he's

wired it. That's the way it's going to happen. Because you see, God is a contagiously generous God.

Or as Jesus said, freeing, you have received so freely gift. You see, when God's grace happens

to us, we would come up people who are a very gifted people because we're saved by the gift of

his grace, not the performance of our lives. The second verse of that is that gifted people

give and they don't just give, but they give generously. Just as God has given to us,

it's the natural outflow of grace. When grace happens, generosity happens. When grace happens,

generosity happens. If you are just discovering grace in your life, you better prepare yourself for

a few waves of generosity coming your way. It's going to happen. You're going to find yourself

tempted to forgive some people you've not wanted to forgive. You're going to find yourself

seriously considering some extravagant acts of kindness. You're going to find yourself doing

some things that 10 years ago or one year ago or even a month ago, you would have never considered

doing. Because when grace happens, generosity happens. It's not that you should be generous. It's

just that you will. You will. You see, grace is the seed that grows the tree of generosity.

Grace is the seed that grows the tree of generosity. So when you meet somebody who's generous,

you can be certain that God's grace has been sowed in the soil of their hearts. Conversely,

when you meet somebody who's a scrooge, who's tight-fisted and stingy, well, they could probably use

a little more grace, right? How about you? Is the seed of generosity, seed of grace taking root

in your heart? Just two or three questions as I close. We'll call it a generosity quiz.

Is there anyone in your life whom you refuse to forgive? I mean, you just refuse to forgive.

Business of this question is not to discuss what they did for you. That's not to question.

But the business of this question is to ask, do you know what God has done for you?

Jesus said, if the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.

If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal. If you have not let God forgive you,

if you've not received His grace, and you're going to find it hard to forgive others.

But as you learn to let God forgive you, guess what? You're going to learn to forgive others.

You're going to be a lot easier to live with, and your life's going to be much sweeter.

Because harboring grudges is really exhausting. When I first got into ministry,

when I would find somebody who wouldn't refuse to forgive somebody, I used to try to convince

them why they should forgive that person. Maybe what they did to them was not so bad.

I failed every time. You cannot convince somebody that their offender didn't really offend them.

And then I realized people forgive, not when they think their offender didn't forgive them,

but when they discover that God has forgiven them. That's when you start to forgive people.

When you realize the million dollar death that you have been forgiven, does that make sense?

So check your grace level. Here's a second question. Do you resent God's kindness to others?

Do you ever resent God's kindness to others? I mean, look at you. You've been working 6, 6am.

You've been such a great servant of the Lord. You've done so many good things for God in your life.

You've always kept your nose clean and made good grades. And then some jerk comes along and just

in the eleventh hour of his life, after making a mess, wrecking marriages, hurting people,

corousing his or her way through the world. Here they give their life to God in the eleventh hour.

And you're supposed to believe that they're going to be in the same heaven you are.

You ever resent the goodness that God has on his people. His reminder is that grace is his business.

He gives it how he wants, when he wants to whom he wants.

One final question. How long since you gave a gift that prompted this response? No, wait, this is

this is too generous. This is too generous. How long since you gave a gift that somebody might call

controversial generous? That your spouse might say, wait a second, you sure we can do this?

I'm not talking about being irresponsible, but bordering on it.

Maybe just stretching yourself a bit. What if you were the neighbor in your neighborhood

who was known for being controversially generous? Well, what if you were the worker at work who was

known for just being controversially generous? He is always doing those kinds of things.

He is. You know how that happens? That happens when you and I do what the psalmist said,

bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your iniquity.

As you think on all the benefits that God has given to you, as you think of the way he is

forgiven, all your iniquities, you will find yourself being generous with others.

There's nothing tight-fisted about God. His loving kindness is abundant,

His sacrifice is constant, His grace is sufficient, and our Lord God

gives grace the way His Son died on the cross with open hands.

May we give grace the same way.

Thank you for joining me today. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe on access more

or wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode. Until next time, stay encouraged.